


Home

by rosetintmyworld



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Foster Parents Johnten, Foster child Mark Lee, Johnny and Ten are watching him go in and out of the system, M/M, Mark is a kid whose mother is on drugs, Probably inaccurate portrayal of foster system, Told from Ten's POV, Unathorized contact with birth mother, panic attack warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:01:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25700248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosetintmyworld/pseuds/rosetintmyworld
Summary: Ten and Johnny decide to foster a kid. They never expected how attached they would get.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 3
Kudos: 115





	Home

Johnny and his husband came to fostering in a rather rocky manner. Ten had wanted children, of course. He was a man displaced in a country that wasn’ his own, trying to figure it all out. He was lucky that he found Johnny, and he was happy for Johnny. He was his family, his tribe when he had no one else. They had gotten married with little word to the family that Ten had back in Thailand. It wasn’t a slight to his family, of course, he understood why his parents wouldn’t have been as thrilled as he was about his marriage. Johnny had been born in the United States, born and raised in Chicago, which was where they lived. so Johnny had his family there, he had his tribe. 

So when building a family came into the discussion, it wasn't a hard sell. Ten wanted a family, and so did Johnny.

Only Johnny hoped to adopt a Korean baby.

Ten just wanted someone who looked like himself, someone he could whisper to in Thai, someone that had the same type of blood running through their veins. He couldn't figure out how to tell Johnny, but he was sure the older man was getting the message as when they began to look for children, he'd always find a reason why the kid wouldn't fit into the family. Eventually, Johnny stopped inquiring about forever adoptions, instead quietly mentioning that maybe a more temporary solution may be what was best for the family.

Mark was their first child, a small and thin little Korean boy, another child displaced by the opioid epidemic. He clutched a small backpack to his chest, his skinny little legs clamped shut as he stood in the doorway, looking small and lost.

“Hi, what’s your name?” Ten watched his husband lean down to the little boy's height, or as close to it as he could get. 

“Mark Lee,” The boy enunciated clearly, and Johnny smiled down at the boy. 

“Mark Lee!” Johnny repeated after the boy excitedly. 

The boy smiled at the man.

“That’s my husband,” Johnny pointed at Ten, waving him over, and Ten bit his lip, walking over to the boy. 

“Annyeonghaseyo, Jeo nun Ten imnida,” Ten introduced himself in shaky Korean and the boy stared up at him, his eyebrows furrowed.

“He doesn’t seem to speak Korean,” The social worker explained softly and Ten let out a breath of relief. 

At least he wouldn’t have to worry about being left out. 

“My name is Ten, it’s nice to meet you, Mark,” He explained and the boy smiled, holding his hand out, shaking Ten’s hand respectfully. 

“Alright, how about you come inside, it’s kind of cold out there, isn’t it,” Johnny said, sweeping them into the house before closing the door behind them.

“I’ve got to get going soon before the storm rolls in,” His Social Worker explained and nodded, going over to his shoes that were piled in the corner. 

“Where are you going pal?” Johnny asked and the boy tilted his head. 

“With Mrs. Greene so that I can go back to mama but I be back to play tomorrow if mama says so,” He explained, and Ten bit his lip. 

“You’re- you’re staying with us for a while,” He explained softly and the boy looked perplexed. 

“Why? Mama’s gonna be worried,” His bottom lip quivered and Johnny rushed to his side. 

“You’re not going to worry your mom, she- she knows that someone else is taking care of you, while she gets better, so you’ll be a good boy, right, until she gets better?” He asked and the boy nodded, falling into Johnny’s arms, making Ten question whether he’d made the right assumption that he wouldn’t be left out. 

Mark was six years old when they found out he would be reunited with his mother. The boy had been with them for two years and a half, or nearly that long anyway when they were told that his mother had met the requirements to have him placed back in her care. Ten had known this day was coming, it was what the temporary nature of fostering children meant, reunification was the goal. The visits ran smoothly and it seemed promising that the boy would go back to a permanent home, and they would have an empty nest until their next kid came back in. 

They sent Mark off with a stuffed animal and a tight hug, promising they’d never forget him. 

They didn’t have the chance. 

Mark was sent back to them four months later, winter setting in yet again. The boy stood on their doorstep, his winter jacket looking worse for wear, and his eyes cast down. 

“Hey Mark baby, remember us?” Johnny asked the boy and Mark nodded. 

“Come on, let’s go inside, I’ll make you some hot chocolate, to warm you right up,” Johnny coaxed the boy inside, lifting him out of his jacket and taking him into the kitchen. 

“What happened to his mom?” Ten asked the social worker and she sighed. 

“She relapsed. Thank you for opening your doors to him again.” 

“It’s really no problem, he’s an angel,” Ten reassured the woman and she nodded.

“I should get going, I’ll call when we set up supervised visits and when we start the reunification process,” She explained and he nodded. 

“of course, I’ll see you later Mrs. Greene, be careful out there,” He whispered to the woman and shook her hand before watching her disappear into the night. 

Ten shut the door before going to the kitchen where the boy and Johnny were. 

He was shocked that the boy was sitting at the table, not nestled in Johnny’s arms. He was wearing a ratty long-sleeved shirt and was looking down into the mug with a dejected look on his face. 

“Mark Lee!” Johnny called the boy and he looked up slowly, his eyes wide, looking almost afraid, and Ten didn’t want that. 

He’d hate to think of Mark being scared of them in the least bit. Ten knew that he himself wasn’t all that scary, but Johnny, no matter how much of a softie he was, could be threatening without meaning to. 

“Hey, hey bud, it’s okay, you like staying with us, don’t you?” Ten asked the six-year-old who nodded at him, his eyes still so wide and scared. 

“Well, we’re going to take care of you again, isn’t that nice?” Ten asked and he swirled his spoon in the mug filled with chocolate. 

“Is my Mom going to be okay?” He asked, his voice soft and Johnny rubbed over the little boys back. 

“Of course baby, she’ll be just fine, don’t you worry about that,” He whispered and mark reached his hand out, wrapping his arms around the men. 

Ten held on tight. 

“Your seventh birthday is tomorrow, what do you want?” Johnny asked the boy as they sat in the kitchen, playing with play-doh at the kitchen table. It was nice to be able to have this with the boy, because his date of departure for a hopefully permanent home with his mom was coming soon, specifically in a month. 

“I just want to spend a good birthday with my dads,” The boy offered, packing the play-doh into the top of the container to shape it into a disk. 

“Oh, then I guess we’d better go take back all of those toys,” Ten teased and Mark leaned onto the man. 

“Toys are good too,” he said and Ten ruffled his hair. 

“Oh, I bet, I don’t know, you’re going to be seven years old, you might be too old for toys,” Johnny teased and Mark shook his head. 

“No, you can never be too old for toys,” Mark argued and Ten just smiled down at his tenacity. 

He was such a good, and bright kid, and he loved him so much.

There was a knock on the door, and Johnny got up to see who it was while Ten continued to play with Mark.

“It’s going to be your bedtime soon, you know,” Ten spoke. 

“But it’s the day before my birthday, can’t I stay up later?” He begged and Ten pretended to think about it. 

“If you stay up later, you’ll wake up later, which means you’ll have to wait longer to open your gifts, who knows if they’ll even still be here by then, we might forget and give them away to little boys who go to bed on time,” Ten teased and mark whined. 

“No! Don’t give them away,” he begged and ten leaned over, picking him up and twirling him in his arms. 

“Let’s go tell Daddy that it’s time for visitors to go home because it’s Mark’s bedtime,” Ten exclaimed ad Mark nodded earnestly, letting Ten half carry his almost seven-year-old body to the living room where Johnny and Mrs. Greene were standing in the doorway. 

“What’s going on?” Ten asked, shielding Mark away from her gaze. 

He wouldn’t be able to bear the thought of Michelle having gotten herself killed so close to his birthday, the boy would never be able to cope with that. 

“Is it Michelle?” He asked and Johnny snorted. 

“She came to get Mark, to take him back to his mother’s,” Johnny spoke, his voice low but sharp. 

“But-But that’s- that’s not for a month, we’ve got plans for tomorrow, it’s his birthday, he-” ten began. 

“Yes, and his biological mother has talked to a judge about moving up the date so that she can spend the day with her son.”

“Can’t he stay for the night, he’s already in his pajamas, just let him stay until tomorrow afternoon, we’ll take him right over,” Ten plead and Johnny opened the closet door next to the front door. 

He pulled out a small windbreaker and backpack, leaning down to Mark.

He began to put the clothes on the boy. 

“What’s going on?” He asked.

“You’re going home to your eomma,” Johnny whispered, and Ten clenched his jaw, watching as the boy tried to fight Johnny’s insistent hands pushing him into the jacket. 

“What about my birthday?” Mark asked and Johnny bit his lip. 

“You’ll spend it with your mother,” He explained. 

“No! No, I don’t want to go! please, I’m sorry! Don’t make me go! I’ll go to bed, I promise!” Mark began to yell and Ten swallowed hard. 

“Hey, hey, none of that, none of that okay, you’re going home with your mom, and that’s a good thing, don’t cry please,” Johnny was so levelheaded and Ten had to bite his fist to keep from yelling along with the boy. 

“I don’t want to leave,” Mark whimpered and Johnny wrapped the boy in a tight hug. Mark punched and kicked at Johnny before just collapsing in his arms, accepting the hug. 

“I-I-I don’t want to leave, please don’t make me leave,” The little boy sobbed and Johnny hugged him so tight he was slightly swaying. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Mark lee, I’m so sorry,” He whimpered into the boy’s dark hair, before wiping his face. 

“Come on, we’ll give you a toy to take, I know it’s not going to be the party you wanted, but it’ll be nice to take a toy, right, you can open a toy before you go,” Johnny whispered.

“I don’t want a toy, I want to stay,” The boy whimpered. 

They went to the closet, Johnny grabbing a toy down and watching as the boy opened the toy airplane. 

“Here you go, it has a remote control, that way you can fly it real high,” Johnny goaded and the boy wiped his nose on his windbreaker. 

Ten made himself useful by getting him a tissue and wiping the snot off his face. He kissed the boys cheek. 

“I love you,” He whispered and Mark hugged him tight before Mrs. Greene tugged him out of their arms and out of the house, disappearing into the twilight. 

“Ten,” Johnny whispered and Ten turned to look at the man. 

“Johnny…” Ten whispered back. 

Johnny punched the wall before collapsing against it, his eyes pinched closed as he cried.

“I can’t- I can’t do this, I can’t do this again,” Johnny whimpered into his knees and Ten collapsed next to him.

Mark was brought back more than a year later, his face thinner and his frame hunched. He was more reserved, quieter and it hurt Ten to look at the kid and think, he was almost nine, and they felt silly pulling out the gifts they’d bought for his seventh birthday now. 

He’d outgrown the clothes, and the toys weren’t things that were even popular anymore.

He took the gifts graciously before unpacking what he had in his little backpack and getting into his bed. 

He didn’t ask about his mom this time and didn’t acknowledge that this wasn’t his permanent home either. 

Just laid in bed. 

Ten was the one to find him crouched in the corner, hyperventilating and crying so hard, he was sure he’d have to take the boy to the hospital.

“Please, tell me what I keep doing to make you send me away, I won’t do it again, I promise, I’ll be good this time,” Mark begged, and Ten hugged him tightly, trying to reassure him that it wasn’t his doing, that they would never send him away if they didn’t have to.

Ten was in the supermarket, shopping for Mark’s favorite ice cream because the boy had been having a rough couple of months now that he knew he would be sent back to his mom yet again. He saw the flash of dyed blonde hair that Michelle kept and he followed the woman. 

He knew that he wasn’t supposed to make unsupervised contact with birth parents, that was one of the first things they learned, but he knew he couldn’t keep doing this to the boy. 

He wouldn’t be able to keep opening his doors to the boy, only to see him get snatched away. 

“Michelle!” He called and the woman turned. 

“Aren’t you one of Mark’s foster dads?” She asked and Ten gave her a glance over. 

She looked like whatever she was doing was working, if not just giving her the appearance of being healthy, and it made him hesitate for a moment before he shook his head. 

“Michelle, please- please stop putting him through this, stop putting our family through this,” Ten began and she raised an eyebrow, looking him up and down in annoyance. 

“Don’t worry, my kid will be out of your hair in a couple of months,” She spat and he shook his head, putting his hand on her shoulder. 

He could feel the tremors that were going through his body, and he tried hard not to get angry, or to cry because either seemed plausible at this moment. 

“No, that’s- that's not what I mean. We don’t want to get rid of Mark. We love him. We know you love him too. I know you’re a good mom, I know that you care about him, but please, think of what he needs. He needs a stable home, he needs a stable family, something that we’re willing to give him. You may never be able to give him that, and we both know that. I’m not going to beat around the bush, just- please, before you rip him out of our lives again, think about what he needs, that’s all I ask,” Ten let her go. 

She just looked him over again before walking out of the supermarket, her buggy left in the middle of the aisle. 

They got a letter a month later, notifying them that Mark’s mother terminated her parental rights.

Ten thought he needed a cultural bond with a kid, thought that he’d always feel like an outsider without having that tie to his home country, but it was false, because it didn’t matter that Mark wasn’t Thai, or that he didn’t know hangul, it just mattered that he loved the kid like his own, and the boy loved him.


End file.
